Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday November 16, 2012 @04:50PM
from the please-don't-start-calling-this-streamgate dept.

MojoKid writes "iOS 6, by all appearances, has a streaming problem. This is separate from the network issues that led Verizon to state that it wouldn't bill people for overages that were caused by spotty Wi-Fi connectivity. The issue has been detailed at PRX.org with information on how the team saw a huge spike in bandwidth usage after the release of iOS 6, and then carefully tested the behavior of devices and its own app to narrow the possible cause. In one case, the playback of a single 30MB episode caused the transfer of over 100MB of data. It is believed that the issue was solved with the release of iOS 6.0.1, but anecdotal evidence from readers points to continued incidents of high data usage, even after updating. If you own an iPhone 5 or upgraded to iOS 6 on an older device, it is strongly recommend to check your usage over the past two months, update to iOS 6.0.1, and plan for a lengthy discussion with your carrier if it turns out your data use went through the roof."

The simplest explanation is that all data you download is uploaded to two monitoring third parties. Previously, they only logged session statistics. Now they log every single thing you do - one stream goes to Apple for "anonymous statistics", and the other goes to some government agency looking for terrists and pedos.

I am glad that there are such rigorous QC controls in place at Apple to protect Customers from issues like this. I am also glad to see that the issue was corrected so quickly, with Apple being upfront with customers about the issue, and working with carriers to correct it.

It's examples like this that make it easy to clearly identify why using Apple products is such a good idea, for all involved.

This is not a problem. Apple users are expected to pay (at least) 3 times as much for anything. Since they already bought Apple, it means (by definition) that they have more dollars than sense. Even if the problem gets fixed, they should be expected to pay triple the going rate.